Humax has begun to acknowledge the rapid take-up of digital satellite receivers by producing a raft of free view ready products. Humax is playing to win with the IR-ACE II, a digital free-to-air receiver, with common interface for irdeto and encrypted channels.

The IR-ACE II has a sizeable casing, even considering what is inside. It sports a slick looking front panel with four small, round operating buttons covering the essential functions of the receiver. A healthy set of connectors on the rear comprises twin scarts one RGB, both S-video and composite and a UHF loopthrough (a modulator is included if the TV does not have a scart connection). Audio is equally well-catered for with stereo phones and an optical digital audio output. The IR-ACE II comes with 2500 channels.

The impressive styling extends to the metallic-grey wand-style remote which is comfortable to hold and bristling with well-labeled and responsive buttons.

The video can be provided to a monitor either from the one scart connector or the RCA Jacks. The RS-232 interface serves to upload new receiver software. The remote control has a number of different buttons for critical functions and is logically designed. With just the push of a button, the FTA or CAS channel list can be displayed.

After connecting the IR-ACE II to all of the external peripherals and then plugging it in, it greets you with the installation menu. The available menu languages are English, German and More than 10 European and Asian languages. All of the standard values for the C-band and the Ku-band are provided and if an unusual value is needed, it can be manually entered. There are three ways to search the channels. Automatic, Manual and by network search. The channels can be moved into one of five favourites lists (maximum 100 channels in each group), and can be sorted, re-named, deleted or blocked.

An OSD provides information on channel number, time, channel name and shows a signal strength bar graph. If the selected channel includes videotext, digital audio, multiple audio tracks or subtitles, the corresponding icon on the display would be illuminated. Additional channel information is provided by the EPG. It saves the data on the hard drive so that all of the information from every satellite is available at anytime upto eight days in advance as long as the provider makes this data available. The receiver supports DiSEqC 1.0. With the help of parental control function, all channels and programmes can be blocked by age limitation. PAL and NTSC signals are handled without any problems. The installation wizard helps easy and automatic installation step by step. The IR-ACE II has a dynamic update function for only Nile Sat all service in ADD network.

The IR-ACE II is a top-notch receiver from a design and functionally point of view. Its channel scan is exceptionally fast, it has a digital audio output and also produces brilliant kidco. The installation and normal every day use of this box is easy to understand even for those users that are less technically inclined. 2500 channels, DiSEqC 1.0 guarantee that this receiver will become obsolete any time soon. Switching between PAL and NTSC signals guarantees world wide compatibility. Incase you are going to bore, the games will really amuse you. Switching between channels is fast. All this will keep the receiver at the top.